Victims Of Design
by chasingfireflies
Summary: So they were made for each other, yeah, but they were also made to fall apart. And resistance? Well, that was futile too. -oneshot- .charah.


**Disclaimer: Just no.**

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"_Maybe you and me got lost somewhere  
We can't move on and we can't stay here  
Well, maybe we've just had enough  
Well, maybe we ain't meant for this love"_

It started with, perhaps, one of the most overused and clichéd lines in all living existence – resistance is futile. In all honesty, the phrase applied to all senses regarding the two of them.

It was futile to resist the original situation – he'd be dragged into the world of espionage sometime in his life, be it Stanford or five years later. This event was unnegotiable. Phrase proved correct.

He'd been dragged into Bryce's world, Sarah's world, Casey's world – employing guns, bullets, blood, lies, and every other hit of their trade – regardless of the initial resistance, downloaded the intersect despite Bryce's first intervention. In all senses and considerations, this proved only that Chuck Bartowski was made for the intersect, and that world was made for him. It had been formed around him since birth, after all – his father, his best friend, his girlfriend, his teacher. They'd all been in the spy game. With or without the intersect, for all their surrounding involvement, he'd have been dragged in eventually.

So in that, getting in the game was inevitable. And resistance?

Futile.

The only difference between the two most prominent instances in his espionage initiation was that in the first his best friend tried to protect him. In his second, it was his best friend who condemned him.

Either way, the best friend would be stabbing the genius in the back – both instances, condemning him to a future he didn't deserve. And either way, it was definitive that Bryce Larkin would lose Chuck Bartowski's friendship forever. And resistance on that level?

Futile.

Sarah Walker came blazing into his life, properly the jilted ex-lover, trying to fix up the mistakes her partner had made so she could clear her name. From their first meeting to their first date, the first joke, the first smile, and the first slip-up of 'I like you', one thing was certain – they'd fall for each other. It was the unavoidable conclusion to their association – he was every girl's dream guy and she was everything he'd ever wanted. She had moves no one else could understand, and he had a smile designed for taking down emotional walls.

Everything she put up against him, every time she hurt him, in the end, wouldn't matter, because nerdy, gentle, cute, oblivious Chuck – not suave, not smooth, not disciplined – was designed as the ultimate weapon of seduction. He wasn't trained, he wasn't intentional, and he worked nothing like an agent. It was because of this that Chuck was effective – his sincerity, his simplicity, and the sheer normalness about him. He was genuine, and caring, and it was so much more enticing than the sexy super secret agents of the world.

And Sarah – she could be anything she wanted to be. Of course, whether she was the badass ninja girl, or the dolled up seductress, there would always be the part of her inside that was still just a normal girl who used to live with her father and liked rocky road ice-cream. No matter how well she hid them, she was full of little vulnerabilities, and Chuck was the only person she'd ever met who could ever hit close to them.

They were complete opposites – gentle, hardened, involved, aloof, calming, on edge – but that was probably what gave the both of them that strange sense of completion whenever they were together. Yeah, they were absolutely made for each other, of course they'd fall in love. And every ounce of resistance in that area was entirely pointless.

But then there was this other point. He was made for a normal life, and whether or not Sarah really wanted that, she was made to run away. She was made for danger, and thrills, and having a family just wasn't a part of that life. So they were made for each other, yeah, but they were also made to fall apart.

Chuck and Sarah were inevitably supposed to fall in love, that was true. But their coexistence would only ever be for a fleeting moment in their lives, because one was designed for proper relationships and the other designed to live alone. One needed to run, and the other was understanding of the fact. Of course they'd fall apart in the end. There would be a great amount of resistance on both parts.

Well, that was futile too.

"_Everybody else is smiling, and their smiles don't fade  
You don't even wonder why, you just don't think that way"_

On her last day of normalcy, Sarah Walker awoke to the soft morning sunlight streaming through the window and onto their bed, and the feeling of his cool cotton sheets rubbing against her bare back when she moved. She was still in a daze, lost in her usual sleepy Sunday morning mode, tangled up in her bed sheets and her _lover,_ and with a small smile on her face and her eyes closed because she was oh-so-content to be there.

She shifted a little in his arms, shivering a little at the warm feelings inspired by skin-to-skin contact, and the feeling of his fingers tracing lazy patterns on her back. And like most mornings when neither of them had work, only each other, Sarah Walker spent the better part of her morning falling in and out of proper consciousness, because she was just too comfortable to move.

Amidst that, she found herself wondering, not for the first time, why their hazy nights of passion and their gentle mornings afterwards just couldn't equate to the thrills of her job.

"It's almost ten," he whispered in her ear at one point. Sarah merely frowned and buried further into him, pretending not to hear. She figured, if she pretended not to hear, then she could pretend it wasn't that time, and she didn't have her bags packed or a ticket on the dresser. She could imagine, just for a little while, that she wouldn't be driving her Porsche to the airport and exiting his life forever, that she wouldn't be forfeiting these lazy Sunday mornings or the feelings of his arms around her.

She could pretend, just for a moment longer, that this, here, with him, would be enough for her. That she wouldn't need the missions, or the guns, or the covers. That she wouldn't need the fast cars and the plane tickets to distant places. That she wouldn't need to pretend anymore.

It wasn't the first time she'd thought it, but the difference now was that it would be the last. If she got dressed that morning, and got on that plane, she wouldn't be coming back. There would be no more mornings tangled with Chuck and the sun's rays falling on her skin, no more evenings of actual romance, or love, or anything remotely real.

She'd spent two years going back and forth between her job and her intersect-free boyfriend, but a relationship couldn't be properly functional when it was stunted by such long absences, no matter how much love was in it. After so long in the agency, her missions were coming back to get her, just not in the way she'd ever expected. The absences had taken their toll, the strain for the both of them had gotten too much, and Sarah had finally chosen the job over the guy she was in love with.

Had he known that when he told her he loved her? That she'd drag him down with her just to break his heart? That the job would always come first, no matter what? Did he know it from the very beginning?

He must've known, because he never made her choose.

This was entirely her own doing. This was her last gorgeous morning with the absolute love of her life, and it was tainted by the strange hollow ache in her heart that came whenever she breached the thought. She hadn't outright told him, but he'd read her silences in their time together. He knew as well as she did that if she took that ticket off the dresser, she wouldn't be returning. This would be the end. No more lazy mornings, no more make-believe.

He knew it, and she knew that if she decided to get up, he'd let her go. She knew it because he hadn't voiced a single protest, hadn't even looked at her with asking eyes. He'd let her go because he didn't care about keeping her all to himself – he never had. He only ever cared about her happiness, even if he'd be miserable.

And it irked her that he'd let her take that plane ticket.

"Chuck?" she asked eventually, gently, and he hummed softly as a response, still in his late morning daze while he started drawing patterns on her back again. "You know I love you, right?"

"So much as I love you," he replied quietly, and it made her smile softly into his chest.

"Why is it that I can love you so much," she started to question tenderly, and she felt his fingers slow their movements even more on her bare skin. "But I can't make this work? I want this to work so much, Chuck. But I can't... I can't find a compromise. I can't draw the line of what's enough for me."

The patterns on her back got slower, and she shifted the minimum amount so she could see his face while he stared thoughtfully at the ceiling.

"...I think we got lost somewhere, Sarah," he told her after a moment. He looked down to her, catching her gaze with a small, sad smile, and warm brown eyes. He lifted a hand to run through her hair. "We've been stuck in this spot for two years. I know it's hard, but we can't move on," he mumbled, and she was well aware that that fact mostly attributed to her. She couldn't properly commit. She still needed her job. "And we can't stay here."

Sarah swallowed uncomfortably, letting her eyes move away from him, knowing that the words falling from his lips seemed to set it all in stone for the two of them. It hurt a bit, to hear it. But she needed to know that she was making the right decision, so it needed to be said.

"I'm so sorry, Chuck," she whispered, and she was slightly surprised when he dropped a hand to her face and let his fingers trail down her jaw, effectively pulling her gaze back up to his. He smiled and shook his head.

"Don't be sorry," he told her simply. The warmth in his smile, in his eyes, made her melt. "Maybe we've just had enough. You love me, and that's enough for me," he explained. "That'll always be enough for me. You need more, Sarah, and you're going to take it. Don't ever be sorry for that."

She moved up to meet his eyes, warming as he stared back at her. Pressing her lips gently against his, she asked her last question, hoping he'd impart her with another flash of his brilliant wisdom before the morning ended.

"How do I do this?" she practically breathed, feeling strangely vulnerable under the circumstances. Her breathing hitched when one of his hands slid up her jaw and into her hair, gentle and all too inviting.

"I know it's hard," he told her again, and she could feel him rolling the both of them over until she was the one staring up into his eyes. The feeling of his cotton sheets couldn't compete with the gentleness of his words or the intoxicating feeling of his hand running slowly down her side.

"Chuck," she breathed, and he pressed a kiss, a smile on his lips, against her neck, easing the reformed tension out of her shoulders and stopping her from feeling the weight of the world.

"One day this is all going to make sense," he told her softly, his lips brushing against hers even as he said the words. "One day," he repeated, and she found her hands moving of their own accord over his shoulders, one to twist into his hair and the other to slide down his back. "This is going to figure itself out. But until then, you need to save the world."

It was a large promise in his words, she realised, while she let the rest of the morning evolve into slow, hazy passion. But for another few hours, she was allowed to pretend.

"_I don't want to love you now if you'll just leave someday  
I don't want to turn around if you'll just walk away"_

By evening - four years after their meeting, two years after they finally connected – she'd picked up her bags by the door, gotten dressed up in her trademark casual chic, and made the appropriate calls. The Porsche was prepped for what she had to do, and the enormity of her final decision was running butterflies in her stomach.

And the defining moment was when she took the plane ticket from the dresser.

She left him at his own doorstep with a sad smile and one last desperate kiss, and then she drove to the airport, handed her Porsche off to the right people, checked in, and boarded her flight. Cursing every decision that ever brought her to this point – Bryce's, Chuck's, her own – she left him behind. It was as inescapable an event that she'd leave him, as it was that she'd meet him in the first place.

Unfortunately, this would be where the inevitability would end. She worked a hazardous occupation, and the chances of something going wrong in that were high. If she survived, then six months, a year, maybe two later, she turn back up on his doorstep, lighter than air and with no professional attachments. It'd work itself out. She'd unpack for good, to stay, and they'd live the rest of their lives the way two people in love are supposed to. And as easily as he'd let her leave, he'd welcome her back.

But the other option was this – her job would take its toll. Whether by distraction or just plain bad luck, she'd catch a bullet, or a bomb, or god knew what else, and she wouldn't make it back to him alive. She wouldn't turn up on his doorstep. She wouldn't reappear in his life. She'd never unpack.

The chances of this were completely equal. From the moment she took the ticket, she'd balanced her future on the tip of a very, very thin knife. There were no more fated conclusions, nothing set in stone, no inevitable end to it. Maybe that uncertainty would scare her home. Maybe not. And for the first time in forever, what the two of them had was entirely left to chance.

But that's what happens when you're victims of design.

"_You and me tried everything  
But still that mockingbird won't sing  
Well, man this life seems hard enough  
Well, maybe we ain't meant for this love"_

_-Mockingbird, Rob Thomas_


End file.
